BREWERS CITY

Milwaukee is the largest city in the state of Wisconsin, United States. The city is located in the southeastern portion of the state on the western shore of Lake Michigan. Current estimates in 2004 place the greater Milwaukee metropolitan area population at roughly 1,600,000. The city's population is 596,974 as of 2000. The city of Milwaukee is the 19th largest city in the United States. Milwaukee is home to a few professional sports franchises; Milwaukee Brewers, Major League Baseball, Milwaukee Bucks, National basketball Association, Milwaukee Admiral, Ice Hockey, Milwaukee Wave, Major League Soccer. The Milwaukee area was originally inhabited by the Fox, Mascouten, Potawatomi, and Winnebago Indian tribes. Milwaukee received its name from the Indian word Millioke which is thought to have meant "The Good Land", or "gathering place by the water". French missionaries and traders passed through the area in the late 1600s and 1700s. Milwaukee's most visually prominent cultural attraction is the Milwaukee Art Museum, and especially its new $100 million wing (including a moving sunscreen quite literally unfolds like the wing of a bird), designed by Santiago Calatrava in his first American commission. Milwaukee is also home to the Florentine Opera, a symphony orchestra and a professional ballet company, as well as boasting a number of theater companies. Milwaukee's proximity to Lake Michigan causes a convection current to form mid-afternoon, resulting in the so-called lake effect, causing the temperatures to be warmer in the winter, and cooler in the summer. Also, the relative humidity in the summer is far higher than that of comparable cities at the same latitude, meaning that it feels hotter than it really is. Notable Denizens of Milwaukee are; Herbert Simon, Jack Kilby, Golda Meir, Lloyd Pettit, Jane Pettit and Leroy Chiao. Milwaukee is the "City of Festivals." It has an annual fair along the lakefront called Summerfest. Listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest music festival in the world, Summerfest attracts around 900,000 visitors a year to its twelve stages. Smaller festivals throughout the year celebrate the city's German, Native American, Italian, Irish, and Polish heritage. Colleges and Universities in Milwaukee are; Alverno College, Cardinal Stritch University, Marquette University, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Area Technical College, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, Milwaukee School of Engineering, Mount Mary College, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and Wisconsin Lutheran College. Although most people associate Milwaukee's reputation with its breweries, today companies like Miller Brewing employ less than one percent of the city's workers. Milwaukee's reputation as a blue collar town is more accurate, however, with 22 percent of the workforce involved in manufacturing -- second only to San Jose, CA and far higher than the national average of 16.5%. Service and managerial jobs are the fastest growing segments of the Milwaukee economy, and healthcare makes up 27% of all service jobs in the city. Milwaukee is headquarters to six Fortune 1000 manufacturers and six Fortune 1000 service companies.